Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on the question of how well business school accreditation bodies manage their own brands. It does so by extending research on business school branding by Pitt et al. (2006) to explore how well business school accreditation organizations such as AACSB International – The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the Association of MBAs, and the European Foundation for Management Development Quality Improvement System manage their brands. Design/methodology/approach – An on-line survey of business school deans was conducted during October and November of 2013. SurveyMonkey was used to administer the survey to 1,131 valid e-mail addresses found for the deans of member schools. Findings – Business school deans face complex decisions in terms of marketing. The selection of which accreditation "co-brand" to seek is both strategically relevant to the market position of the business school and has numerous financial and often career implications. The findings in this research suggest that AACSB is perceived by a broad global sample of business school deans to be generally the strongest brand, and therefore likely the best choice if a school is seeking only one accreditation. Originality/value – This study contributes to the understanding of business school marketing, strategic planning, and branding in a highly competitive global market.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Business education, Brand equity audit
Research Division:	Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
Research Group:	Marketing
Research Field:	Marketing Management (incl. Strategy and Customer Relations)
Objective Division:	Economic Framework
Objective Group:	Management and Productivity
Objective Field:	Marketing
Author:	Grimmer, M (Associate Professor Martin Grimmer)
ID Code:	106075
Year Published:	2016
Web of Science® Times Cited:	1
Deposited By:	Tasmanian School of Business and Economics
Deposited On:	2016-01-28
Last Modified:	2017-04-11
Downloads:	0